Opening Day

Peter Cooper is an East Nashville-based singer, songwriter, touring artist, sideman, producer, college professor, and award-winning journalist. His first three solo albums, Mission Door (2008), The Lloyd Green Album (2010), and Opening Day (2013), received critical acclaim as have his three albums with duo partner Eric Brace. He and Brace were nominated for a Grammy award for their sublime 2011 release I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow.

In the fall of 2015, Cooper's fourth album comes out, Depot Light: Songs of Eric Taylor. Cooper, one of the finest singer-songwriters out there, has decided to make an album of nothing but Eric Taylor's songs. Why? "These songs are absolute narrative masterpieces," says Cooper. "It’s not that I wanted to somehow raise the profile of these songs, or pay tribute to Eric. This is a selfish project. I just wanted to sing these songs, and hope that maybe someone will mistake them for my own."

It's not the first time Cooper has covered Eric Taylor's songs. On his 2008 debut, Mission Door, there were ten Cooper originals and two covers, both by Taylor -- "All the Way to Heaven" and the title track. When Mission Door came out, American Songwriter magazine proclaimed it “Cooper’s diploma from the Tom T. Hall School of Damn Good Songwriting.” Cooper's second solo album was The Lloyd Green Album, another step in his on-going collaboration with the pedal steel Hall of Famer. Album number three, Opening Day, found Cooper digging deeper making one of the finest singer-songwriter collections in the past decade. He has also released three duo works with Eric Brace, You Don't Have to Like Them Both, Master Sessions (with Lloyd Green and Mike Auldridge), and The Comeback Album.

Cooper's work has won praise from each of his chief influences: Tom T. Hall, John Prine, Todd Snider, Eric Taylor, and Kris Kristofferson. The latter said, “Peter Cooper looks at the world with an artist’s eye and a human heart and soul. His songs are the work of an original, creative imagination, alive with humor and heartbreak and irony and intelligence, with truth and beauty in the details. Deep stuff. And they get better every time you listen.”

For more than a decade, Cooper was the senior music writer and columnist for Nashville's daily paper, The Tennessean. He is currently working at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum as Museum Editor. Named one of Nashville’s “10 Most Interesting People” by Nashville Arts & Entertainment magazine, Cooper is also a session player, a producer who has worked with Snider, Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, Fayssoux Starling McLean, among others, and is professor of country music at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

Opening Day

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by Peter Cooper

2. Opening Day

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by Peter Cooper

3. A Million Miles to the City

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by Tom T. Hall

4. Feels Like Home

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by Peter Cooper and Irene Kelley

5. Jenny Died at 25

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by Peter Cooper

6. Grandma's Tattoo

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by Peter Cooper and Tommy Womack

7. Distraction

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by Peter Cooper

8. Quiet Little War

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by Peter Cooper

9. Part Time

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by Peter Cooper

10. Great Today

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by Peter Cooper and Thomm Jutz

11. Birches

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by Bill Morrissey

Peter Cooper is an East Nashville-based singer, songwriter, touring artist, sideman, producer, college professor, and award-winning journalist. His first three solo albums, Mission Door (2008), The Lloyd Green Album (2010), and Opening Day (2013), received critical acclaim as have his three albums with duo partner Eric Brace. He and Brace were nominated for a Grammy award for their sublime 2011 release I Love: Tom T. Hall's Songs of Fox Hollow.

In the fall of 2015, Cooper's fourth album comes out, Depot Light: Songs of Eric Taylor. Cooper, one of the finest singer-songwriters out there, has decided to make an album of nothing but Eric Taylor's songs. Why? "These songs are absolute narrative masterpieces," says Cooper. "It’s not that I wanted to somehow raise the profile of these songs, or pay tribute to Eric. This is a selfish project. I just wanted to sing these songs, and hope that maybe someone will mistake them for my own."

It's not the first time Cooper has covered Eric Taylor's songs. On his 2008 debut, Mission Door, there were ten Cooper originals and two covers, both by Taylor -- "All the Way to Heaven" and the title track. When Mission Door came out, American Songwriter magazine proclaimed it “Cooper’s diploma from the Tom T. Hall School of Damn Good Songwriting.” Cooper's second solo album was The Lloyd Green Album, another step in his on-going collaboration with the pedal steel Hall of Famer. Album number three, Opening Day, found Cooper digging deeper making one of the finest singer-songwriter collections in the past decade. He has also released three duo works with Eric Brace, You Don't Have to Like Them Both, Master Sessions (with Lloyd Green and Mike Auldridge), and The Comeback Album.

Cooper's work has won praise from each of his chief influences: Tom T. Hall, John Prine, Todd Snider, Eric Taylor, and Kris Kristofferson. The latter said, “Peter Cooper looks at the world with an artist’s eye and a human heart and soul. His songs are the work of an original, creative imagination, alive with humor and heartbreak and irony and intelligence, with truth and beauty in the details. Deep stuff. And they get better every time you listen.”

For more than a decade, Cooper was the senior music writer and columnist for Nashville's daily paper, The Tennessean. He is currently working at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum as Museum Editor. Named one of Nashville’s “10 Most Interesting People” by Nashville Arts & Entertainment magazine, Cooper is also a session player, a producer who has worked with Snider, Emmylou Harris, Ricky Skaggs, Fayssoux Starling McLean, among others, and is professor of country music at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.